Australian Electoral Commission joins TikTok despite security fears

The Australian Electoral Commission has become one of the first federal government agencies to join TikTok, after initially refusing the urgings of the Chinese tech giant to join its platform in 2023.

The AEC has joined TikTok, one of the first government organisations to do so.

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The Australian Electoral Commission has become one of the first federal government agencies to join TikTok, after initially refusing the urgings of the Chinese-tech giant to join its platform in 2023.

In a move that experts have declared is “an implicit admission of the platform’s immense political influence”, the AEC this week joined agencies such as Australia Post and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in creating a TikTok profile through which to post videos ahead of the election, due by May 17 at the latest.

“We’re joining the platform. It’s arguably never been more important to get on to TikTok and make sure we’re talking to people about how the election is run,” AEC digital engagement director Evan Ekin-Smyth said in the agency’s inaugural video posted on Thursday.

“So we’re doing it for 2025. If you look at the number of users, there’s about nine million Australian users of TikTok – that’s about half the electoral roll.

“So we’re here to provide insights, behind the scenes, getting into our venue, showing you how it’s all run.”

The AEC’s subsequent videos are focused on the level of resourcing the agency provides for an election and a warning to users to look out for social media posts with misleading statistics, doctored images or anything “without a credible source”.

A screengrab of a TikTok video by the Australian Electoral Commission.

TikTok had been urging the AEC to join the platform since 2023, when the tech giant wrote to the election watchdog on numerous occasions in the lead-up to the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum in order to provide “authoritative information to our community”.

However, the AEC refused to join the platform because of “the broad public debate about TikTok” and because of Labor’s decision to ban the app on government devices.

Since then, TikTok had remained a hot topic of political debate globally, and this year, US President Donald Trump declared he would ban the app in the US for all users.

When asked what had changed since the AEC’s previous rejection of the platform, Mr Ekin-Smythe pointed to the “further uptake” of TikTok by Australian citizens and political participants, which meant even more conversations about the electoral process would take place on the app.

Exemptions to the TikTok ban include instances where there is a legitimate business need for the app, or where the joining of the app would help dispel misinformation.

The Home Affairs Department did not respond by deadline to questions from The Australian about whether it was satisfied that the AEC met those thresholds for an exemption.

In addition to using the app to dispel misinformation, the AEC also confirmed TikTok was downloaded on a separate device used only for the posting of content on the app, and which was kept in a specific office.

A screengrab of a TikTok video by the Australian Electoral Commission.

The AEC raised serious concerns about the narratives being shared on TikTok at the last election, when videos of staff inside of polling places were circulated alongside claims of a “stolen election” narrative that echoed events in the US.

But despite the agency’s decision to join the app chiefly to dispel misinformation, one of the country’s leading strategic policy think-tanks raised concerns about the move which was “inconsistent with the government’s acknowledgment that TikTok is a national security threat”.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director Justin Bassi acknowledged that the original ban included an exemption provision, but argued this should “be limited to emergency purposes” such as natural disasters.

“Elections, which have all gone well without TikTok, should not be considered a justifiable business case,” Mr Bassi said.

“The reason for breaking the official use ban on TikTok hasn’t been given but it seems likely that the AEC has concerns about the fact that TikTok is a hotbed of Chinese Communist Party propaganda, disinformation and lies relating to Russia’s war in Ukraine and Australia’s relationships with both the US and China.

“If this is the case, the solution is for the Australian government to strengthen the current partial government ban into a full ban across Australia and not allow a weakening of the existing partial ban.”

ASPI senior analyst Fergus Ryan said that while it made sense “on the surface” for the AEC to be where the voters were, the decision to join TikTok ignored a key problem, which was “that its algorithm can be manipulated to favour one political position over another”.

Acting Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope. Picture: Martin Ollman

As part of the 2022 election, TikTok joined with the AEC to launch “an in-app election guide” that provided information about where and when to vote, along with preferential voting explainers.

Former Labor Party strategist Megan Lane said “we are continuing to see a shift from Australian politicians and some government agencies into non-traditional news channels as the media landscape and electoral map continue to fragment”.

“Government agencies like the AEC, and politicians clearly have very different objectives and success KPIs on platforms like TikTok, but it is interesting to see both groups accelerating their efforts as we approach the 2025 Australian election,” she said.

“Political parties will be in this to garner more votes from the younger voters who dominate the platform, and who are traditionally more open to changing their vote from one election to the next.”

Following a boycott of TikTok after the 2022 election, Coalition MPs, including Peter Dutton, had rejoined the app in an effort to reach not only younger voters, but also the Chinese diaspora.

Despite finding relative success on TikTok, politicians of all stripes have found themselves shadowbanned on other Chinese-owned apps such as RedNote before the 2025 election.